Edna+Rohner

On July 14, 1921, 23-year-old homemaker Edna May Inman Rohner died at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago from an abortion reportedly perpetrated by Dr. Otto Klemmick.

He was held by the coroner and tried, but acquitted on June 12, 1923. The source material is scanty, so it's unclear how much evidence there was against Klemick or why he was acquitted.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see [|Abortion in the 1920s].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

 Sources:
 * [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive]
 * Death notice, Chicago Tribune, July 17, 1921
 * Death certificate



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